[Python-Dev] hard linking executables

[Ben Finney]

Dan Stromberg <drsalists at gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au>wrote:
>
> > Dan Stromberg <drsalists at gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > It's been suggested that […] if people had added symlinks first,
> > > no one would've bothered adding hardlinks.
> >
> > Well, that suggestion is faulty. It ignores the fact that *all*
> > ordinary files on Unix are hard links. Any ordinary file entry in a
> > directory is a hard link to the file's data.
>
> Not really. Whether hard links is supported is mostly a matter of what
> filesystem you are using - in modern times. It's true that filesystems
> with complete POSIX semantics probably all support hardlinks, but
> that's far from every file on any given *ix. And of course, POSIX
> doesn't appear to have been created until the late 1990's.

POSIX didn't create those semantics, though; it formalised semantics
that were already long-time convention.

My only point was that, unlike symbolic links, hard linking isn't some
added feature, it's a property of the way Unix filesystems represent
normal files. And you're right that I mean “on filesystems with POSIX
semantics”.

> It's much easier to imagine a system with no hardlinks, than to
> imagine a system with no symlinks.

Why imagine? There have been many of both.

-- 
 \            “But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have |
  `\    examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.” |
_o__)                    —Carl Sagan, _The Burden of Skepticism_, 1987 |
Ben Finney